[act-ma] 7/29: Come Out Against Racism - Stop Racial Profiling

[Bail Out the People Movement - Boston]

*Come Out Against Racism!*

*Stop Racial Profiling and Police Brutality!
 
Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Was Right!
** *
*The Cambridge Cops Must Apologize!
** *
*Youth Need Jobs & Schools - Not Jails!
** *
*Demand a Justice Department Investigation
of Racial Profiling Across the US*


*Wednesday, July 29*

*5:00 pm - Gather
5:30 pm - Press Conference
6-8:00 pm - Police Review and Advisory Board Special Meeting*

*Cambridge City Hall, Sullivan Chamber *
795 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
(one block from Central Square Red Line T)


The arrest of Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by a Cambridge police officer 
after showing two forms of identification after he, along with a Black 
limo driver, had unjammed the lock to the front door of Gates' own house 
in a predominantly white, upscale neighborhood known as "Harvard Square" 
has brought the struggle against racism to the front pages of newspapers 
throughout the US and around the world. 

The Cambridge Police Department and their racist allies have worked 
overtime to slander and vilify Prof. Gates. But his only crime was in 
fact to resist the racist arrogance of the Cambridge Police and not 
acquiesce to their racist and unjust treatment of him. *The torrent of 
racist vitriol targeting Prof. Gates as well as the absolute racist 
arrogance displayed by the Cambridge Police Department in demanding that 
Pres. Obama and Gov. Patrick apologize for expressing support for Prof. 
Gates, cannot go unanswered!*  It is time for all poor and working 
people, and particularly whites, to come out against these racist 
attacks and stand foursquare in 100% solidarity with Professor Gates and 
against racial profiling and police brutality.

Cambridge, Harvard University and Boston are seen around the world as 
bastions of liberalism, hotbeds of progressive ideas and prestigious 
places from which cutting-edge research emanates. But the racial 
profiling and arrest of Prof. Gates have re-raised the question of how 
much has changed since the 1970s when, in the wake of court-ordered 
busing for desegregation, white racist mobs were stoning buses carrying 
Black school children and attacking Black people on the streets and in 
their homes.

*Gates was Right! The Cambridge Police Department was Wrong!*

Racial profiling is another expression of institutionalized racism. In 
the U.S., racial profiling and police brutality have become an 
unfortunate reality of life for people of color, especially youth. It 
doesn't matter whether it occurs in the inner city, a small town, or an 
upper-middle class suburb.

In a 2004 report entitled "Threat and Humiliation: Racial Profiling, 
Domestic Security and Human Rights in the United States," Amnesty 
International documented that in a year-long investigation, an estimated 
32 million people had been racially profiled--the vast majority of them 
from nationally oppressed groups. One can only imagine how much these 
numbers have increased over the last five years, not only for those born 
in the U.S. but also for immigrants.  Since 9/11 there has been a 
corresponding increase in racial profiling targeting the Arab and Muslim 
communities.

The police have been, by far, the most feared perpetrators of racial 
profiling, and understandably so. Police harassment and brutality is an 
epidemic.  According to a 2008 report by the Washington, D.C. based 
Campaign for Youth Justice entitled "Critical Condition: African 
American Youth in the Justice System" African American youth make up 30 
percent of youth arrested while they represent only 17 percent of the 
overall youth population. Additionally, African American youth are 62 
percent of the total number of youth prosecuted in the adult criminal 
system and are nine times more likely than white youth to receive an 
adult prison sentence. 

One only needs to remember how the Somerville 5 (5 Black youth from 
Somerville who were arrested on racist frame up charges by the Medford 
Police)  or the Jena 6 were treated.  Not to mention the racism that 
followed the devastation of the 9th Ward in New Orleans as a result of 
hurricane Katrina.

As the economic crisis deepens the ruling class will use all means at 
its disposal to foster artificial divisions between white workers and 
Black, Latina/o, and immigrant workers.  It is our responsibility to 
build a movement based on anti-racist, class-wide solidarity--as workers 
of all nationalities are losing their jobs, homes, health care and 
pensions in rapid numbers; and as the economic crisis becomes even more 
acute.
 
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bail Out The People Movement
*Boston
*617-522-6626
bopmboston at gmail.com
<mailto:bopmboston at gmail.com>http://bopm-boston.blogspot.com

*National Office
*212-633-6646
bailoutpeople at safewebmail.com
<mailto:bailoutpeople at safewebmail.com>http://www.BailOutPeople.org
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